In our most recent Punks & Pinstripes Insights we asked two questions about the on-again off-again acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk:

1. Was the acquisition attempt fueling a surge in departures by Twitter employees?

2. Where is Twitter talent working after they leave?

To find answers we analyzed 1,221 LinkedIn profiles of people who’ve left Twitter over the past twelve months. (This is extremely hard. Huge shoutout to John Johansen and Elizabeth Gafford for being data geniuses.)

Here’s what we found:

Twitter departures surged 58% to 579 employees in Q3, compared to 337 departures in Q2. To reiterate: this statistic only accounts for people who announced they were leaving on Linkedin; the actual number of departures is likely much larger.

Twitter’s turmoil is Google and Meta’s gain. Google, Meta, and Amazon have pounced on the turmoil at Twitter and hired over 200 of the 579 people who left over the past 90 days. 

If “Early Stage Startup” was a company it would be the most popular employer of ex-Twitter talent. We estimate that about 130 of the 579 people who left Twitter went to an early stage startup. This is in line with similar patterns we saw when conducting a similar analysis of departures from TikTok and Tesla. 

Why does this matter? This data flips the script on the rumors that if Elon Musk takes over he will drastically reduce headcount. The reality is that Twitter’s talent has options of where they can work and they are capitalizing on those options.

What’s next? Next, we will analyze who is leaving Twitter, what their level of seniority and domain experience is.

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